Newsday Tuesday - Fighting ISIS

Major ISIS defeat by Iraqi, Kurdish, and US Forces

I’ve briefly touched on ISIS in other Newsday Tuesday posts, but today I wanted to take a little more time to explain briefly what is happening in Iraq in regards to this militant Islamic group.  Just in case you have missed previous posts, ISIS is a militant Sunni Islamic group that is a by product of Al Qaeda.  Created in response to the ousting of Saddam Hussein, this group’s main goal and focus is to reclaim lands that they believe are the true historic Iraq. (The current borders of Iraq were drawn as a result of the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France, with little regard to the historical or cultural context of the people in the region.  Most of the Middle East has been drawn this way – and done so primarily for the benefit of the Colonizing nation’s access to oil.  The borders were drawn almost arbitrarily for the nations along the Mediterranean Sea, and done in such a way that the French would maintain control/influence in the northern Mediterranean bordering states (Lebanon, Syria, Turkey), while the British would have access to the southern states. (Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq).  As a result, many different rival political, social, and cultural groups were grouped into statehood, which many would argue sparked most of the political unrest in the Middle East today.

(Note: Remember when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait? His reasoning was along the same vein, Kuwait, in his mind technically should be part of Iraq. Not to mention its oil.)

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) emerged with the primary focus of erasing the Western imposed borders and revert back to the historical borders of the Ottoman Empire.  Throughout the Iraq War, American forces were able to largely keep this group from growing, however with the recent troop withdrawals, this group has been able to rebuild itself,  and is determined to remove the Shiite based government in Baghdad, and create a caliphate – the one true form of government for devout Muslims. The turmoil in both Iraq and Syria has set the stage to allow this group to sweep across parts of northeastern Syria, and northern/central parts of Iraq - and in June of 2014 ISIS officially declared its conquered areas a caliphate.

A clip from a New York Times Article, showing the entire conflict via maps, pictures, and graphics. Check it out here.

Despite the seemingly endless victories ISIS has been experiencing, taking a wide swath of land town by town, a major victory took place yesterday.  Iraqi and Kurdish forces along with American air support were able to re-capture Iraq’s largest dam, and prevent the incursion of ISIS forces into the Kurdish capital of Irbil. Additionally, had the Mosul Dam been taken by ISIS fighters and destroyed, the US Embassy - only 200 miles away in Baghdad - would have been flooded. ISIS was reportedly on retreat after Iraqi Special Forces, Kurdish pesh merga fighters, and US Air Support launched their attack starting on Sunday.  On Monday, the US continued the fight by using bombers and drones to take out some 15 different ISIS targets near the Mosul Dam. President Obama has said that his primary goal in Iraq is to ensure that the US has a viable partner in the region, as well as helping Iraq to form a government that does not exclude its Sunni citizenry. Since the recent removal of Maliki from office, the new prime-minister designate (Haider al-Abadi) is charged with forming a new government within the next two weeks.  It is the hope that the new leadership in Iraq can solidify the nation so that it may effectively expel the influence of ISIS

(Note: The Kurds are an ethnic minority – approximately 20% of Iraq’s population- that live in the northern regions of Iraq. Although the Kurdish people live within the borders of Iraq, they have managed to create their own quasi-state that has been relatively well organized militarily and has managed to keep their region of Iraq relatively safe from in-fighting and groups like ISIS.)  

Sources:
http://www.cfr.org/iraq/islamic-state-iraq-syria/p14811
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/defeat-isis-let-iraq-split
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-iraq-isis-conflict-in-maps-photos-and-video.html?_r=0
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraqi-kurdish-forces-claim-defeat-of-insurgents-at-strategic-mosul-dam/2014/08/18/c869a59a-26d6-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html
http://www.dw.de/sykes-picot-drew-middle-easts-arbitrary-borders/a-17734768